1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a speech recognition-based user interface technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
A user interface that incorporates speech recognition or speech synthesis is being applied to operating such devices as car navigation systems. One advantage of a user interface that employs speech recognition is that it facilitates a shortcut to an intended control screen. For example, a hierarchical menu is employed when controlling a device via only a graphical user interface (GUI). In such a circumstance, a user may find it necessary to go from a first screen to a second screen, a third screen, and a fourth screen, in order to execute a given function. When using a user interface that employs speech recognition, on the other hand, it is possible, for example, for the user to verbally input a prescribed spoken, that is, speech, command in the first screen that directs a transition to the fourth screen, and thus, transition directly from the first screen to the fourth screen.
It is necessary, however, for the user to have prior knowledge of the speech command that corresponds to the transition to the desired screen. Jpn. Patent Publication No. 2000-231398 (Cited Reference 1), for example, discloses a technology that stores a sequence of operations that the user performs, and notifies the user that a shortcut exists that corresponds to the sequence of operations thus stored. The technology allows the user to learn a speech shortcut in a simpler fashion than might otherwise be possible.
The technology disclosed in the Cited Reference 1, however, requires that a plurality of spoken shortcuts be stored in the device for all manner of sequences of operations. Each respective user will have need of different spoken shortcuts in actual use, and thus, speech shortcuts of which a given user has no need will be recorded therein. Consequently, executing speech recognition on the device will necessitate recognizing a significant quantity of speech that corresponds to a given speech shortcut, which, in turn, may lead to a deterioration in speech recognition accuracy.